Delid...is it worth it? A first time delidders experiance, with super results.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

I was a bit disappointed with the 9900k release....more threads has no real impact on games, and only really impacts non time critical tasks like encoding. For a gamer its a bit of a useless upgrade. Also the 5ghz headline figure is not up to much as every 8700k could reach that speed with ease.

To that end rather than upgrade I decided to delid my 8700k and see how far the overclock can be pushed. I looked at the tutorials online and it seemed fairly straightforward. I realize people are cautions about this, but I can tell you if you have a single ounce of manual dexterity its a piece of cake, and very quick

Temps before, 20 mins heat soak, @ 5ghz, 1.32 volts. H150i AIO. Bit high on core 2 and 4



The Debauer delid tool, some liquid metal, heat tolerant adhesive, and new thermal paste. Also you need some alcohol to clean things up and a cocktail stick or orange wood stick to scrape residue off. Some nail-varnish from the missus to cover the little contacts near the die.




Remove the CPU, I was using the application of thermal paste that came with the cooler, pretty crappy spread on the CPU. I did replace this with thermal grisly so take that into consideration when looking at the temp drops.




CPU out, clean off the thermal paste. Into the delid tool, clamp it down, turn the screw and pop...its off no problem and not as much pressure as I would have thought.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Tidy up all the adhesive with a wood stick, dont use metal knife on the die, but use whatever on the heat spreader. Apply liquid metal, its funny stuff and take a bit of spreading. Cove the die and also the contralateral part of the heat spreader. You need to apply to both and have a good bit on but not too much, a few vids said you need enough for a mirror finish. I know you can not do the adhesive to re-stick the heat spreader back on and just use the socket clamp pressure...but I put a tiny bit on just to hold it on place, and used the included clamp. Left it for 30 minutes and reinstalled it in my machine and re applied thermal past to the cooler.













And here are the final temps after the same heat-soak at the same 5ghz @ 1.32 volts. Basically 20 degrees off everything, so a super result. I will try push the overclock to 5.2ghz and see whats what. I am surprised how easy it was and I never really felt anything was all that brittle. Recommended if you want to squeeze the max out of your chip. Anyone in the Dublin area is welcome to PM me and use the tools as there is enough to delid dozens of processors.

Inviere

Fantastic, great result

Dcully

Thats impressive.

Inviere

How do you spread the liquid metal on the die itself?

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Its like mercury and doesn't really want to spread, you need to move it around with a cotton bud until its starts to spread, after that its not too hard. The cleaner the surface the higher the contact energy to overcome the surface tension. Only took about 5 minutes.

Easy 5.1ghz @ 1.35 volts max core temp 72 degrees....I think there is 5.3 below 1.4 in this chip........

ED E

What's your CB R15 score if you don't mind me asking?

btkm8unsl0w5r4

ED E wrote: »

What's your CB R15 score if you don't mind me asking?

1623 @ 5.1ghz

ED E

Daycent.

Metric Tensor

Excellent thread. After seeing this I would consider it for my 6700k in future.

Love the Coco Pops too - breakfast of champions whilst delidding!

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Cannot get stability at 5.3 @ 1.4. I am always a bit cautious going higher on the voltage 5.1 and 5.2 are fine. Seems that the limit of my chip. Seems the delidding games is still alive with the 9900k. The solder is not as good as a delid and liquid metal. Steve on gamers nexus has a 30 minute video on it. I love his content but his delivery just puts me to sleep, so monotone.

BloodBath

I don't understand intel. €600 cpu and they still cheap out on their tim.

What do they save per unit? Maybe €1 - 2 at best. Makes no sense to me.

tuxy

BloodBath wrote: »

I don't understand intel. €600 cpu and they still cheap out on their tim.

What do they save per unit? Maybe €1 - 2 at best. Makes no sense to me.

Did they cheap out or apply an excessive amount that may be necessary for mass production. The die 9xxx die is very thick and does benefit from lapping. This would add cost and again shows they were worried about damaging chips in the mass production soldering.

wotzgoingon

BloodBath wrote: »

I don't understand intel. €600 cpu and they still cheap out on their tim.

What do they save per unit? Maybe €1 - 2 at best. Makes no sense to me.

It all adds up though. €1 x 175,000 = A nice chunk of money. Twice that if they are saving €2 a pop. Sure when designing any type of electronic motherboard or circuit the producer wants to save as much as possible. Even on cheap components that cost 20 cents each. You would be surprised.

ED E

DeBauer discussed it all.

If your sTIM is too thin it doesnt work. You have to thicken it somewhat. Then as it heats and cools its "pulling" on the die itself. The thickness of the die may be to prevent long term damage by the sTIM.

Intel may be greedy but they aren't stupid. You can be damned sure there are a few very expensive material scientists working on this.

tuxy

wotzgoingon wrote: »

It all adds up though. €1 x 175,000 = A nice chunk of money. Twice that if they are saving €2 a pop.

But it's more expensive to use a thicker die and extra solder. What they are saving is damaging chips in production.
Clearly they were under pressure to add extra cores as Ryzen has been doing better than expected, that's probly the biggest factor in the excessive heat.

JoyPad

Judging purely from a financial perspective, you have to remember that Intel is already kicking AMD's behind on clock per core, so it's not in their best interest right now to push this particular envelope. I'd say they might keep this improvement in their back pocket until they actually need it.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

the reason that coffee lake was not soldered was that the process of soldering broke X amount of good chips in the process. To counter this they thicken the silicone to withstand the thermal changes with the 9900k. The cost of the solder, or the thicker silicone pales in comparison with the loss of X number of chips. Its all about yeild.

Seems however that die lapping and delidding is getting big gains on the 9900k, its a high risk proceedure but it seems that that chip overclocked and running with good Vram is a hot hot hot boi.

Praetorian

I also did my 8600k and saw similar results. My cpu can do 5.3ghz, possibly could do more if I pushed it. But I run at 5.2ghz 24/7. Amazing cpu. Thought about a 9900k but the truth is I don't do enough high-end video editing or heavy cpu work to warrant the upgrade.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Praetorian wrote: »

I also did my 8600k and saw similar results. My cpu can do 5.3ghz, possibly could do more if I pushed it. But I run at 5.2ghz 24/7. Amazing cpu. Thought about a 9900k but the truth is I don't do enough high-end video editing or heavy cpu work to warrant the upgrade.

What voltage are you running @ 5.3ghz, thats a very good overclock